Hey! I hope you like this chapter, please review :)
Gwen followed Donna into the bookshop. A scent of coffee lingered from the café and cake stall in the bookshop. In the centre of the bookshop was a display, where 'A Journal of Impossible Things' was placed at the top.
"Donna, I don't think you should look at that book," Gwen warned.
"But . . . I don't what it is but there's something about it," Donna muttered, mesmerised by the book.
"Donna! It could trigger one of your fits!" Gwen worried, trying to pull Donna back.
"Get off," Donna muttered, shrugging Gwen off her as she picked up the book. Slowly, she flicked through the pages – drawings of plastic men and fob watches and pretty women and blue boxes. "It's . . . Why does it look so familiar?"
"Donna, look away."
"No. They look so . . ." Donna stammered, looking through even more drawings of children in gas masks and ten faces of the same man. "They're so real. It's a book. Fiction. But it's real. I know it's real. This all exists!"
"No it doesn't!" Gwen insisted.
"Don't tell me that. I know it does . . . There's a name," Donna realised. "There's a name I need to know . . . Such an important name . . . The Doctor."
Martha and Mickey remained trapped in their escape pod, tumbling through space. The pod was getting cold, the only window beginning to frost over a little. Their breaths formed crystallised clouds.
"So – we're just trapped here," Martha shrugged. "Floating out into space. No control."
"Can't we steer this or something?" Mickey wondered, looking through the buttons.
"Martha shook her head. "It's an escape pod; designed so we just drift until someone picks us up or we land."
"And if no-one saves us?"
"What do you think?" Martha sobbed, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
"No. Don't think that babe cos it ain't gonna happen," Mickey insisted, sitting by Martha as he hugged her.
"What's the point?" Martha shrugged. "We can wait here until we starve to death, or freeze to death or the oxygen runs out. Either way we're doomed."
"Don't think like that. Someone'll help us. Maybe the Doctor, maybe someone else, but either way we'll be helped."
"We'd better hope," Martha said, managing a little smile. "Look out there," Martha grinned, pointing to a far out constellation, glittering with purple light. "Now that is why I travelled with the Doctor. Not the monsters or the danger, but the beautiful – all the worlds and the creatures and the culture. It's fantastic!"
"Yeah," Mickey agreed holding Martha. "What do you think happened to the Tardis?"
"Maybe when we hit it, it was flung back to us," Martha thought. "By hitting it, we made this whole thing happen."
"But that would mean the Doctor could be anywhere," Mickey realised. "If the Tardis was flung out through time, then where's he, and whichever companion he's got now?"
"He'll help us," Martha said, nodding her head. "We may just be a couple in a long line, or just the second best, but he'll help us. I trust him."
"Me too. He was always obsessed with Rose."
"Same here. To a life without Rose and the Doctor!" Martha laughed, high-fiving Mickey. "At least our relationship came out of that. The aftermath, you could say."
"The best aftermath ever," Mickey joked.
Martha rested her head on Mickey's chest. "I love you."
"I love you too, babes."
The Torchwood van parked in the small parking space of a large building. It was a normal building – full of offices. The parking space was dark with a couple of flickering overhead lights. Out stepped Jack, Clara, Angie and Artie, slamming the doors shut behind them.
"Is this it?" Angie asked, a little disappointed. "Is this Torchwood?"
"Ha!" Jack laughed. "No way. This is the Black Demon Industries office block"
"Then why are we here?" Clara asked.
"Oh. You'll see," Jack teased. "Come on, follow me."
Jack opened up the back doors of the van and took out the limp, unmoving body of the Zygon-Doctor. He rested the Doctor's arm over his shoulder and carried him to the lift.
"You can't just walk about like that!" Clara cried. "People'll ask why you're caring a dead, bleeding body."
"So what? You'd be surprised how people will choose to overlook things," Jack pointed out, pressing the button to call the lift.
"Even still, it's weird," Clara said, turning up her nose.
"Weird is what we deal with," Jack smiled.
The lift pinged as the doors opened. Jack stepped in first, having to urge the others to follow. Just as the doors closed, a man jumped into the lift with them. He was a normal guy, in a suit and in a bit of a shambles as he pressed the button for the sixth floor. When he noticed Jack hold a dead body, he steps back a little in confusion.
"Oh. Don't worry," Jack laughed. "Say hi to my brother. He got drunk last night and's a bit . . . Under the weather, you might say."
"Ok . . ." the man stuttered, not entirely convinced. "And the blood?"
"Pub brawl," Clara quickly replied, smiling awkwardly to the man.
The man still looked incredibly confused, and a little scared. Behind his back, he furiously clicked at the lift buttons. "Actually . . . I think this floor'll do," he stammered. The lift wouldn't open, so he resorted to trying to prize the doors open. The others watched in wonder as the man was driven mad, before eventually just jumping out of the lift at the next possible floor.
"Should we be worrying about him?" Clara asked.
"Na," Jack shrugged. "I'll get someone to spike his drink with Retcon."
"Isn't that illegal?" Artie inquired.
"Quite possibly," Jack agreed. "Anyway – to Torchwood."
Jack pressed the button floor the basement floor and immediately an electronic voice announced that access for the basement was unauthorised. Jack removed a tag from his pocket and held it to the button for the basement floor, causing a blue light from the door to scan Jack's eyes. The electronic voice spoke again: "Access granted". Shuddering, the lift hurtled down to the basement floor, when it suddenly stopped, causing Clara to nearly trip.
Jack grinned. "Make sure your jaws don't hit the floor too hard."
The doors to the lift parted, revealing the Torchwood Hub. The Hub was giant – at least three floors tall and just as wide, with a floor made out of slate. There were four computers in a row, facing into a circular pool of water. There were a couple of offices and large metal doors leading to vaults and cellars. A large pillar ran through the centre, buzzing with electricity.
"This is amazing!" Artie gasped, stepping into the Hub.
"This is alright, I guess!" Angie laughed, clearly awestruck.
"Wow!" Clara gleamed. "Just wow!"
"Anyone's jaws hurting?" Jack joked. "This is the Hub. From here we monitor any unusual or alien happenings on Earth. We keep records of sightings, gather extra-terrestrial artefacts and contain any aliens that we can't return."
"Yeah. And we work our butts off every day to save your asses," Rex moaned appearing from behind a computer. "I'm Rex. Welcome to the Hub."
"I'm Clara," Clara greeted him, holding out her hand.
"Clara Oswald, right?" Rex remembered, shaking her hand. "And the Maitland kids."
"How do you . . .?" Clara began to ask.
"We keep a close eye on all of the Doctor's companions," Jack answered.
"A little creepy, but I can live with it," Clara shrugged.
"What the hell is that on your shoulder?" Rex asked, gesturing to Jack.
"Oh – just a Zygon impersonating the Doctor," Jack replied, "we'll need to store it in a vault."
"That's not how I imagined the Doctor looking," Rex said.
"He must have regenerated," Jack guessed.
"That aside, what do we do now?" Clara asked. "That Zygon specifically came for me; why?"
"Good question. She's better than the Welsh girl," Rex joked.
"I dunno," Jack confessed. "But if the Zygon's can impersonate the Doctor, then they must have captured him."
"How do we find the Zygons?" Clara asked. "I've met them before, but they were in Elizabethan England."
"They could be anywhere," Jack frowned.
"But I think I know how to find out," Rex smiled.
"How?" Jack inquired.
"This," Rex replied, holding up a plain DVD. "Emergency protocol files. I was looking over it earlier and I think it might hold the answer."
"How come?" Clara asked, intrigued.
Rex explained. "All over the country, there are people that have met the Doctor, are learning about him or collect files about his travels to Earth. On this disc, there's a whole list of people who we can contact. There's a couple not far from here that've met the Doctor and have files worth of information about him, and I think they might have information specific to this event."
"Ok. Amazing. How do we find them?" Clara asked.
"I've already set the Sat-Nav to their location."
"Good," Jack smiled. "I want you to put the Zygon in a vault . . ."
"And look after the kids while we're gone," Clara added.
"What?" Angie complained. "We have to stay here!"
"Yes. I've already put you two in enough danger already today," Clara replied.
"How come I have to do the babysitting?" Rex argued.
"Because I'm taking Clara to meet this couple," Jack replied. "Come on, Clara."
"Be nice to the kids!" Clara called as Jack pulled her to the lift.
Rex was left on his own, facing the Angie and Artie in an awkward silence. "So . . . What do you guys wanna do?"
"Can you explain some of your technology?" Artie requested.
Rex groaned. "This is gonna be one long hell of a day."
"Hitler . . ." the Doctor gasped.
"I knew his face would look like that," River laughed.
"So is this your plan?" the Doctor muttered. "You kill millions of people. Millions of innocent people. Six million in the Holocaust alone. You make me sick!"
River shuck her head. "You may not have realised it, but even us Zygons have a scrap of decently. That man makes us sick too. The camps opened years ago – we have no influence over them."
"Then why are you here?" the Doctor asked.
"That's enough for you to know," Hitler snapped.
"Surely you'll know that I'll have to stop you anyway," the Doctor warned them.
"And how exactly are you going to do that?" River laughed.
"Like so," the Doctor grinned. He pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and aimed it at the chandelier above him. Immediately, he dived to a side, dodging the falling glass that fell on top of the Zygons in the room. Taking advantage of the situation, he ran.
The Doctor slipped through a door and into a long, muddy corridor that led under the battlefield. He ran – rocked every other moment as the bombs erupted above him. Rubble fell from the mud ceiling and the corridor blazed with orange light.
Eventually, the Doctor emerged in the first room that he'd been taken to. He stepped towards the red curtain, and swept it to a side, revealing the body of the real river Song, tangled in red Zygon webbing. Carefully, the Doctor removed the webbing, pulling it from River before letting it drop to the floor.
"River . . ." the Doctor muttered, tapping River on the cheek as he pulled her from the webbing, resting her on the floor. "River? River, can you hear me?"
Slowly, River started to come around, her eyelids fluttering. "Doctor?" she whispered, opening her eyes to the Doctor's smiling face.
The Doctor smiled, laughing a little. "River."
"Hello sweetie," River grinned.
"Nice to meet you," the Doctor said, before pulling her onto her feet. "Let's go."
"Why? What's going on?" River asked, confused.
"Zygons. Come on, sweetie!"
I hope you liked that! Does Black Demon have something to do with what's happening? And what is the Zygon plan? Please review. Some answers could be answered next time, but to be honest I don't have a clue :) And on my profile page, you can choose a classic companion to appear in this story! Vote before 10th June!